lyrics contest

sighs zhu, i realize there are technical problems in having more than one shoutbox on one page, so this newly constructed shoutbox only made a fleeting guest appearance on uku before been taken down and transferred here...with my fully knowledge that there's a resident (but much disused) shoutbox here too. Never mind that first, I don't see a great flurry of posts gushing into ss anytime soon, so let's just ping pong lyrics here.

KOKIA

I just started listening to KOKIA. There're 2 or 3 tracks in Red Garden OST that caught my notice and I tried other songs. Her voice is classically trained, perfect control and tuning. Her singing style is a strange blend of opera, folk and pop ('opera' being her strength and highlight).

Basic info from Wiki.theppn

KOKIA is a Japanese singer-songwriter hailing from Tokyo. She is mostly associated with games and anime soundtracks; having appeared in eight different game/anime soundtracks to date. KOKIA has an extremely talented voice - she even held a long-tone Opera note for a little over 29 seconds on national TV once. She is most well-known in Hong Kong and Taiwan for her song Arigatou..., which became so popular it was even covered by star Sammi Cheng. Her biggest hit in Japan was the single The Power of Smile / Remember the Kiss, which reached #15 on Oricon charts.

External Links
Official web (old)
Official web (new)
Happii KOKIA (fansite in Eng & French) - very resourceful!

Some live clips from youtube,
She always performs barefoot! It seems she has a large fan base in France.

[Live] KOKIA - Bataclan 2007 part 1/2


[Live] KOKIA - Bataclan 2007 part 2/2


[Live] KOKIA - Arigato (in France)


KOKIA - Aishiteirukara
This one makes me a bit nostalgic.Coz I sure heard it when I was a kid,on radio!lol.

Rufus News

Woke up this morning at 11:11, and my google reader notifier calmly said I have about 60 new feeds (10 hours after I last read), most of them under the ‘music’ tag. I thought Oh man, I hope blogspot didn’t automatically republish ukulele…and as it turns out everything was from this one “Rufus Wainwright RSS feed”, talking about bulk updating for your musician…

So, lots of Rufus news--sold-out live shows and touring and interviews and all--Rufus is one busy man (or maybe just that he can’t help being in High Demand). The most exciting of all is his new song on The Robinsons soundtrack, called Another Believer, is available for listening on his MySpace page. The song sounds catchy and cheerful, pop enough for an anime movie, but very Rufus nonetheless. And the most ‘bizarre’ of all is the cover to the new album, Release the Stars, due for release on May 15.

Does anybody else think this is a little unsettling on first glance?

The tracklist is also released, it reads

01 Do I Disappoint You
02 Going to a Town
03 Tiergarten
04 Nobody's Off the Hook
05 Between My Legs
06 Rules and Regulations
07 I'm Not Ready to Love
08 Slideshow
09 Tulsa
10 Leaving for Paris
11 Sanssouci
12 Release the Stars

I think I just saw some interesting title choice…and words foreign to me. Seems Rufus likes his literary allusions as ever, and I have a good feeling it’s not gonna disappoint me in the least.

In other news, the anticipated documentary film Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man (in which Rufus among many others pays his tribute and performs 3 songs) just screened in New York. I have great respect for the man (though the man has not released any new material in many a year…But I’ve yet to exhaust his rich old stuff, so I am not as disgruntled), and I am hoping it comes my way soon (if at all). Without further ado, a trailer for your pleasure.



and I'll wrap up it all with Rufus live in concert, performing Greek Song. Yum.



(and...I curbed the next thousand incoherent words I wanted to say of Rufus...no small effort I tell you...)

Death Cab for Cutie - Marching Bands of Manhattan

Thanks to Jady who introduced me to death cab for cutie, an American indie rock band formed in 1997. I want to recommend this song 'Marching Bands of Manhattan',from their 2005 album 'Plans'(the highest charting album for DCFC, nominated for Grammy).

- Links -
Wiki
Official Site

The melody is quite simple and repetitive but it keeps the rhythm going. 'Like a faucet that leaks and there is comfort in the sound'best summarises the sorrow and numbing comfort. The 1st and 2nd stanza seems to be spoken by different subject, an open admirer and a doubtful hermit. Their love never quite works out. While debating the damage or bliss love could bring, romance is drowned in rising tides and the opportunity's slowly disappearing. I don't like the music video but heck let's just stick with it.



"Marching Bands Of Manhattan"

If I could open my arms
And span the length of the isle of Manhattan,
I'd bring it to where you are
Making a lake of the East River and Hudson
If I could open my mouth
Wide enough for a marching band to march out
They would make your name sing
And bend through alleys and bounce off all the buildings.

I wish we could open our eyes
To see in all directions at the same time
Oh what a beautiful view
If you were never aware of what was around you
And it is true what you said
That I live like a hermit in my own head
But when the sun shines again
I'll pull the curtains and blinds to let the light in.

Sorrow drips into your heart through a pinhole
Just like a faucet that leaks and there is comfort in the sound
But while you debate half empty or half full
It slowly rises, your love is gonna drown [4x]

Your love is gonna drown [4x]
Your love is gonna...

uku uku

整个下午窝在瘸腿椅子里做ukulele beta版，站起来去买晚饭时腿居然麻了。一天下来什么正事也不想做，不想做事的时候大概就只能做模版..什么逻辑。

以为很难转换的beta template(其实应该说blogspot 2吧，人家都从beta毕业好久了)，仔细看了一下code，发现其实很简单，就是在CSS里面裹来裹去，换几个名字，加上一点新的，删掉很多无用的，差不多就是个可以见公婆的小媳妇儿了。uku是初试，所以花了不少功夫还是个不折不扣的丑媳妇，缺胳膊少腿，歪歪斜斜的眼眉就是整不端正，活活急死人。最后做完了发现其实变化也有限，好像保护文物一样，整旧如故，大概也只有做过的人知道有什么名堂罢。

习惯性的几乎每天看uku的webmeter stats，哪怕更新一点都不勤。不知道还有没有人像我，好像有强迫症一般，吼吼。除了世界地图比较好玩之外，referring url page也是很有趣的地方。你大概不知道uku人气最高/最常被搜的帖子是哪一篇吧？呵呵，是你那篇 Gedo Senki Kashu和Aoi Teshima的super review，不少人都是搜Teshima的歌词才点进uku的。有人前几天才留了言request歌词，不知你看到没。还有其他一些很好笑的或者很莫明其妙的search word combination，总之都end up在uku了，笑...

偶在想忙完了这一阵，要好好地，regular地给uku浇水施肥之类的。不过写review好严肃啊，一个月有一两篇可以啦 （或者两个月有一篇...哈哈...不过某人欠的norah还是要写的哈），还是轻松的推介比较好玩。希望不是五分钟热情...

an update

(blogging out of pure frustration that I am in no shape to attack a congested desk of work right now..) Finally got this blog into the post-beta version, which looks pretty much the same as before except for the hierarchical archive list (which does not load and expand well in firefox, just this single case. I am investigating) and the ability to rank tags—I don’t like it in this case as the numbers are not very helpful excepting indicating this blogging circle is primarily into north American and Japanese music scene—so I put that at the bottom of the sidebar, in case you still want to know the stats.

In other news, two other albums that I noted in the upcoming release list of ’07 have come out-- Air’s Pocket Symphony and Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy—zhu still owes a sweet mini-review on Norah’s latest Not Too Late released in January. Well zhu, you know the saying, and you are not too late if you cough it up about NOW. B-) Back to the new stuff, I'm look ing forward to hearing them, especially Chinese Democracy. With the complete line-up change and this long of hiatus and no studio album I wonder where GNR stand now, and if they have gone entirely obsolete for that matter. That’s a sad nagging thought, but I’ll hold off my doubts for now.

Put on old Grammy compilation music all afternoon, they made up a long playlist and I didn’t bother to change—it was just…mindlessly easy on the ears, and a lot of them remind me of the times when I still bought cassettes (a lot), and recorded radio programs and trading with friends…good old days. And after this revision of pre-Britney pre-hip pop music I have to say they were almost too sweet…melodious sometimes to the point of being formulaic. Is it a thing of the late 90s or has it more to do with whoever voted for those Grammies…just a thought, I have not been following the award for years..

and Last.fm keeps recommending me stuff that either I already own but have yet to scrobble, or stuff that I went to try and really liked, gotta love this brainy music bot…

indie rock playlists

For indie rock enthusiastics, music omnivores and anti-copyright fiends (who download an inordinate amount of stuff for pastime and/or just for the kick of it, ye know who you are ;-) – here’s the latest goodie (that the very slow me found not long ago). Click and you shall find bittorrent links to several large (by 'large' I mean LARGE) indie rock playlists, compiled monthly by some generous soul(s) of interesting, fun tastes. Enjoy!